August

The market is up! The market is down! The speculators are losing money! Government better do something quick! Interestingly, among the loudest voices calling for the Federal Reserve to take quick action were the same voices who call for smaller government and for government to “get out of the way of business” — a little odd, don’t you think?

If anything should be a no-brainer for the world’s richest country, it is making sure all its children have basic health care. That’s part of securing our nation’s future, right? Wrong, says the Bush administration.

Two years ago, Hurricane Katrina caused tens of thousands of families to lose their homes. Last year, the home mortgage meltdown that is now sweeping the country took the homes of 800,000 families. This year, the number could reach 2 million.

Smithfield Packing employs 5,500 workers who slaughter and package the meat of 32,000 hogs a day at its sprawling plant in Tar Heel, a tiny town 80 miles south of Raleigh, N.C. The facility has become a rallying point for the nation’s labor movement and for civil rights, immigrant rights, community and human rights groups seeking an end to injustice.

NEW ORLEANS — Two years after his wife was swept away by Hurricane Katrina, Calvin Bernard still comes to sweep the slab and water the flowers where their house once stood in this city’s Lower 9th Ward. It is his way of keeping alive the hope that he can rebuild his life and his community.